Nikesh Shukla: Superhumour
Meatspace is the second novel from Costa First Novel Award shortlisted author Nikesh Shukla. It follows Kitab Balasubramanyam (‘Kit’ for short) as he deals with heartbreak, unemployment and an online namesake-turned-stalker. When Aziz, Kit’s brother and flatmate, leaves him to track down his doppelgänger in America, Kit finds it harder and harder to maintain his...
Emma Jane Unsworth gets rowdy
Animals by Emma Jane Unsworth is the hilarious account of the friendship between Laura and her best friend Tyler as they navigate their nights out, days spent hungover and the relationships they develop along the way. I ask her about the origins of the novel and how it speaks to our times, and she gives...
The true lives of Luke Brown
Editor Luke Brown turns author with his debut novel My Biggest Lie, about a man who wakes up after a disastrously drunken night in which he loses his job and girlfriend and decides to flee to Argentina to get his life back on track. Nothing goes to plan, of course, and Liam creates havoc in...
Barbara Taylor: Out of the system
Barbara Taylor’s The Last Asylum: A Memoir of Madness in our Times is a refined and beautifully written scrapbook of a study of the mental health system in the UK. It’s also Taylor’s deeply personal account of her breakdown and, ultimately, after many years of work and therapeutic support, her triumph over severe emotional illness....
Rosa Rankin-Gee: Echoes from the island
Rosa Rankin-Gee’s wonderfully accomplished debut novel The Last Kings of Sark explores a friendship triangle developed over an intense summer on Sark island with repercussions that last for years. Emma Young catches up with her. The Last Kings of Sark won Shakespeare & Company’s inaugural Paris Literary Prize in 2011. Extremely-belated congratulations – I suspect...
